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Thursday, February 25, 2010

"WIBGI"

WIBGI = wouldn't it be great if...

On the airplane the other day, I was reading a very interesting article on Harvard Business Review about a company called Intellectual Ventures. This is a company started by Nathan Myhrvold, former Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft and Edward Jung (a colleague from Microsoft).

Here's a brief description of Intellectual Ventures:

Founded in 2000, Intellectual Ventures is built on the belief that combining capitalism and invention will benefit the world with more and better inventions as well as create financial rewards for investors.

So, where does WIBGI fit in? In this article, there's a story where an invention session involved heart, chest, bone, and brain surgeons. These surgeons were asked to draft a WIBGI wish list and they came up with some innovative product ideas including new designs for surgical toos that are self-sterilizing... tools that can snake their way around delicate areas of the brain rather than passing through them... novel ways to make implantable devices that can intelligently dispense medicines... smart shunts that signal when they are clogged or that can clean themselves... and much more. That's innovation!

If you've been thinking about inventing something in the biomedical field, do you know how to get started? Do you know how to secure a patent? I love these types of articles in Harvard Business Review. They really get my creative juices flowing.